U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the city's police department, an extraordinary assertion of presidential power in the nation's capital.

At an extraordinary news conference on Monday, President Donald Trump revealed plans to take over the Washington, D.C. police department and deploy National Guard troops in the nation's capital to combat what he says it rampant violent crime that statistics show is actually decreasing.

President Trump on Monday announced he was putting the Washington, D.C., police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard in what he portrayed as a crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital.